Similar in many ways to the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand With AutoFeed Dock (PDS-ST450-VP) that it's in the process of replacing, the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand with AutoFeed Dock PDSDK-ST470-VP ($140 list) offers the same dual personality as a both a wand scanner and manual-feed scanner, but delivers one key extra. Thanks to its 1.5-inch color LCD, you can see a thumbnail of each scan and zoom in to check scan quality on the spot. That's enough to make it a lot more useful for scanning originals that you won't be able to rescan easily later if the first scan didn't come out well.

Being able to preview a thumbnail image is, admittedly, a second-best solution. Much better is being able to send the scan to a smartphone or tablet by Wi-Fi to preview it at a larger size, as you can with the Brother DSmobile 820W manual-feed scanner that I recently reviewed or the Editors' Choice VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Wi-Fi PDSWF-ST44-VP.

That said, a thumbnail preview is a lot better than nothing. And in combination with the dock that turns this wand scanner into a manual-feed scanner, it makes the PDSDK-ST470-VP one of the better choices for wand scanners.

Basics and SetupMuch like the VuPoint PDS-ST450-VP, the PDSDK-ST470-VP scanner offers the same portability you get with any wand scanner, with both a small size, at 1.1 by 10.5 by 1.5 inches (HWD), and light weight, at seven ounces.

The dock weighs another one pound five ounces, which is enough that you might not want to bring it with you. It also needs a power source, which means you have to connect it by the supplied USB cable to either a computer or the supplied power adaptor, with the adaptor plugged into an outlet. The good news is that even though the weight and need for a power source make the dock less portable than it could be, it earns points for being easy to use. I found I could snap the scanner into place or remove it in less than a second.

In addition to its dock, USB cable, and power block, the scanner comes with a permanently installed rechargeable battery and Abbyy FineReader 9.0 Sprint for optical character recognition (OCR). Unfortunately, it doesn't come with microSD or microSDHC card. That's important to know before you buy the scanner, since you can't scan without one. According to VuPoint Solutions, you can use cards with up to a 32GB capacity.

Setup is easy. Plug in a memory card, charge the battery by connecting to a computer or power outlet, and optionally install FineReader on your computer. When the battery finishes charging, you're ready to scan.

ScanningThe scanner offers slightly different resolution choices depending on whether you're using it by itself or with the dock. As a wand scanner you can set the resolution to 300, 600, or 1,050 pixels per inch (ppi), set the color mode to color or grayscale, and set the file format to JPG, image PDF for A4 size paper, or image PDF for letter-size paper. Snap it into the dock, and the color mode and file format choices remain the same, but the resolution choices change to 300, 600, and 1,200 ppi.

After choosing your settings, you can scan as a wand scanner by staring with the scanner at the top or side of a page, pressing the scan button, and then sweeping down or across the page. If you're using the dock, you feed the page far enough for the rollers to grab it, and let go. Using the dock, I timed the scan at roughly 11 to 15 seconds, depending on the resolution setting.

After scanning you can see thumbnails of your scans and zoom in on them to check scan quality. The feature is limited however. You can only scroll up and down when you're zoomed in, not right and left. In addition, the aspect ratio on the previews is off, so everything looks relatively longer and thinner than the actual scan. It's easy enough to discount the distortion, but it could lead you to overlooking an actual problem in scan quality.

As with most scanners that scan without a computer, you can move the scan files to your computer either by physically moving the card or by connecting to the computer with a USB cable, letting the computer recognize the card as a USB drive, and copying the files. You also have the option of either connecting the USB cable directly to the scanner or connecting it to the dock, with the scanner mounted in the dock.

ResultsGiven that Abbyy FineReader is the only program the scanner comes with, there were only two applications I could test the scanner for: optical character recognition (OCR) and document management. It did reasonably well on both, although the lack of an automatic document feeder and duplexing (two-sided scanning), puts limits the maximum possible score in both cases.

For OCR, the combination of the scanner and FineReader did a good job, recognizing text on our Times New Roman test page at 10 points and on our Arial page at 8 points without a mistake at 300 ppi. It also helps that FineReader can turn multiple individual files with one page each into a single, multi-page text file for editing. For document management, similarly, it can turn multiple pages into a single, multi-page searchable PDF file.

I'd like this scanner even more if you could run the dock from batteries, if it had a better preview function, or both. As it is, if you want a portable manual feed scanner that doesn't need a computer and can run on batteries, you should take a look at the Brother DSmobile 820W. And if you don't need the manual feed at all, you should consider the Editors' Choice PDSWF-ST44-VP, with its Wi-Fi capability. If you need both a wand and manual-feed scanner, however, the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand With AutoFeed Dock (PDSDK-ST470-VP) can easily fill both slots.

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M. David Stone is an award-winning freelance writer and computer industry consultant. Although a confirmed generalist, with writing credits on subjects as varied as ape language experiments, politics, quantum physics, and an overview of a top company in the gaming industry. David is also an expert in imaging technologies (including printers, monitors, large-screen displays, projectors, scanners, and digital cameras), storage (both magnetic and optical), and word processing. He is a recognized expert on printers, well known within the industry, and has been a judge for...
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